a ma turned coolly, “else what should Ibe Pemorraiic, atcha : a ar sisted still kindly. Just at the first, she —_— | pleased his artistic eye. Bellefonte, Pa., August 11, i911. |” Martier bit her lower lip to stifle a —————————————— JAW T a | “The bread, if you SUMMER: A RHAPSODY. ' Fanchot t had much exper- Howdy, Mr. Summer-Time? ience.” : “Not too much,” she retorted pertly, Glad to see you here; i Life becomes a pretty rhyme “but enough. When your glows appear. "You would sing Musette, one supposes All the world seems fuil of love ~—a very delightful Musette. ‘When your roses bloom, . Now it is not Musette who has the im- And your azure skies above ‘portant role in “Boheme.” The little Drive away all gloom. chanteuse flung Fanchot a disdainful look. “Mimi,” she corrected laconically. Like to fee} the touch 20 soft “Ah?" said Fanchot, still quite innocent In your balmy air, ' of any desire to offend , “one would not And the breezes from aloft ! have supposed it. Nedda?” Tousling my hair. She merely n Love the rustling of the trees | "Michaela?" Like rome fairy's sigh, An affirmative motion of the eyebrows. And to listento the bees “Juliette?” Droning lullaby. Another nod. Love the scent of heliotrope, At that, he smiled, with pleasure—the Pink, and mignonette; boyish, deprecating smile Le J . Love to watch the pansies ope, : “I also sing Romeo. It is of my And the violet. | She looked him over accurately. Love to hear the cattle call | "One would not have Supposed it. e O'er the clovered mere, | have no sugar at this place And to watch the waters fall ! Fanchot sigaalled the disinterested weir. | waiter. Havinga friendly heart, Fanchot Dies the very wee OT To eT Love to sit and watch the moon “You will not find us dificult—we little Smiling down on me, ones of the Opera.” While the wavelets softly croon i "What does it matter?” inquired the in- By the summer sea. 'solent Martier, and rose from the table, Love to listen to the song having finished her meal. She left Fan- Of the birds at morn, : chot staring. There you have in its beginning a very When the sunbeams come along i | pretty feud, for Martier continued to sit With the day new-born. Lovete hear the katydids ' rose against her continued llation. Out there in the night, "It was not a great spirit, if you like, hav- | Day after day the two broke bread to-. Like a lot of Buisy kids ng its finest expression in juggling balls | gether at the little table, and scorned each oan endless Set. before an altar; but clean it was—as | other furiously above the salt. The audi- Love to hear t Hyesry spirits go—and childishly sweet. It |ences that filled the Opera House from Clicking with t ie Jean could be childishly vicious, too, when | parquet to gallery that winter, never knew When it Comes te or We some one it, as Martier chose to | that each red-rose moment of “Pagliacci” Summer can't be beat Si ‘do invariably. It was as if she had con- | was a delicious agony to Fanchot who Carlyle Smith. | ceived a feline dislike for him, unsheath- | sang it. They appiauged-those big stup- ing her claws whe never he id audiences—and in the boxes, the de- defied him to smooth her fur. Soon there | butantes, all white and pink like wind- FANCHOT. | was open war between them, to the - | flowers, murmured, rustling among them- ! natured amusement of the rest the | selves: You will remember—if you have sat in “Isn't he sweet?—Fanchot! Those the stalls of the old French Opera House = "She is a cat, that little Martier,” said | eyes, my dear! No less than burning!— on Bourbon street, to hear “Le Jongleur Fanchot gloomily to Charprent one day. | and ey long as your arm.” | de Notre Dame"—you will remember “Yes. but I had rather have her scratch | Poor Fanchot! Martier had not ob- Fanchot. | than purr,” was the basso's deep-voiced Fanchot was Le Jongleur. I donot say condolence. “It is so hard to be he sang it. Mary Garden did that. Fan. them—when they purr.” chot was the creature—body and blood | Fanchot sh ed. He was fresh from and motley. A shrinking, undersized , | an encounter, and his wounds yet smart- OR ashe) an eager body inside | ed. the juggler’s gauds; t, gentle, sad,’ One deep wound which Martier had in- gray eyes; a mouth, pitifuliy young, flicted er twitching between pain concerned acutely the personal comeli- laughter—that was Le Jongleur. In- ness of the little tenor. cidentally, that was Fanchot. Fanchot had a cast in one eye—a very When they took him from his balls and ' slight cast—scarcely cast tricks to put a monk's robe on him, it ‘noticed, and surely not to be remarked tied a knot about your heart—he was so! Spon. Martier observed it, however, and much a boy, so young, so eager, so full all was grist that came to her wicked of quaint bravado, and passionate desire mill. to please—but when in the last act he; “You have perhaps an eye of glass?’ came before the altar, casting that robe she inquired pleasantly one evening at aside, the knot broke, and your heart dinner, when the feud had been more swelled to bursting. If you were human, | than usually intense. and had not the temper of cold steel, you ' Fanchot indignantly denied it. put a hand to your eyes, unashamed. “But why should you care? Itis a very For Fanchot, in motley, singing his good eye—the difference is slight. I songs, dancing his dances, and juggling should scarcely have known!" his bright swift balls before the Blessed “It is my own eye,” he assured her, in Mother—thie only offering he knew how a white heat rage. to make her—was nin not easily “But yes,” she murmured Sootingly, fo be laughed aside. Like a gallant toy “itbecomes your own, since it is paid for. soldier come to life, he strutted up and A perfect match. I assure you, I should down, his little drum throbbed beneath ' never have known, except for a little his fingers, and his bells jingled. Above | crookedness—Ilike a cast.” him, the high altar glowed, with lights! “It is a cast,” said Fanchot between his like jewels. When he looked up to the teeth, “in my eye.” pictured face of Mary, his feet faltered, “One understands,” she agreed indul- and his voice broke; but then he soon : gently, “in your eye—not in the one of went on again, more eagerly than ever, ‘glass. No matter!” leaping and whirling like mad in the Thereafter she lost no occasion of tor- earnest of his dance. Had not Boniface | menting him. Fanchot wasimpotent, till told him that the best one could do made | an unexpected, but quite perceptible flat- always an acceptable offering in Her | ting of Mimi's notes, one night, gave him sight? And, this was his best—his high- his opportunity. Next day at luncheon, est reach—his Art So when he fell pant- he rose to the occasion. ing upon the altar-steps, exhausted near, “How you must have been mortified!” to death, and the white hand of the Vir- he consoled her, “last night—to flat so n was stretched out above him in bene- dreadfully!” ion—you credited the miracle. More, | “I?” cried Martier, “tc fiat!" zee saw your own accustomed prayers Her brown eye: flamed fury. The what they were, sick, sorry things in ‘blood swept up in*o her cheeks. the light of that boy's white faith. !" “The papers speak of it—you have not That, as I have said, was Le Jongleur ' seen?” suggested Fanchot mildly. “No who was Fanchot. But Fanchot was not | matter! Let us talk of something more always Le Jongleur, else this story need | pleasant—"" not be written. There is not much ma- | Martier was out of the room, and half- terial in mere goodness for the stories ! way up the stairs in quest of a morning that people will read. | paper, before the laat word left his lips. Fanchot in his ordinary self, wassome- “Touche!” chuckled Fanchot to him- what otherwise. His name, given him by | self. But he pushed his plate aside, and certaindoting ts and godparents in! ate no more lunch that day. baptism, was Camille Jean ie, which! For Le Jongleur who was Fanchot, and goes far to explain why he sang in a lyric | Fanchot who was Le Jongleur, had come tenor and wore neckties of delicate gray. to love the one who Payal him. Slowly, When he was not nor per- | but with the sureness of a sunrise, it had forming, nor riding about in taxicabs—a | come to him that his taunts were so recreation which he adored—he lived at | many weak defences, so many feeble bar- the Hotel de Paris, which, every one ri against an encroaching tide. knows, is just across the street from the | While French Opera House, and shelters in its, sneer, his eyes were hungry u the capacious gray bosom most of the latter's ' curl that touched her cheek. ile he -birds. parried and thrust in the vendictive fence Fanchot had a room there and, in addi- | she forced upon him, he would have tion, when he chose to be at home for | given his soul toput his lipsto her hand; them, three plentiful meals a day. On | and while he laughed lightest at the fiat- the whole, he found it an easy and a ting of her notes, mentally he was down pleasant life. Of an evening, he sat cosily | in the dust at her feet, praying that for ensconced behind the little table nearest | her own sake, she might not do it again. the window—which was nearest the door | Nothing of this came home to Martier, —and sipped his sour, red wine, and | though beside herself there was no soul gulped his cafe noir, and rolled and lit his | in the troupe whodid not know the truth, subsequent cigarettes, with no interrup- | or who failed, with truth temperamental tion other than the genial nod of Char- | wit, to make a jest of it. prent, the big basso, who ate across the| The season marched, as seasons do, room with his wife; or the shrill, com- | and one after another, subscription nights radely greeting of Handel, the premiere | were added to the past. By some quaint danseuse; or the languishing of | chance, the fickle public chose to be Barger, the ia Who Tuigge) a | pleased with Fanchot and Martier in wi one hand manip “Pagliacci”—so "w 3 ” sung, an ort wae oe Ee an sat quite was not | an im , enticing a lonely, till there came upon te, scene, the Cani little Martier! Martier, to admit the grievous truth, was an interloper. Poor, pretty Guyol, the original chanteuse legere of She trompe, , an Fanchot’s gray eyes on such ts. A fire of longing touched him, a flame of wild regret. In “Romeo et Juliette” he was the wistfullest lover those walls had seen—as Juliette was the shyest maid-~ what Fanchot lacked in impressiveness of stature, he atoned for in earnest—but it was hard for any man to love poetical- managerial jy the undercurrent accompaniment Further, there no other t Martier played him. seat for the new-comer, she was put tete- | When, far example, she leaned from a-tete with Fanchot at the little table. | the balcony into Further yet, she was so pretty as to be and so as to be spoiled—a | der, and ark, scornful little creature, rose-cheek- | between the outbursts of their duet, she ed, with eyes like the evening star's re- | tortured him in a delicate whisper. flection in twin pools. Furthest of all,!| “Do not put your face so near—I can- upon the first evening, Fanchot had | not spoken quite kindly, meaning to put her| “Oh la! la!—if you regard me so at her ease, and the hussy had flouted | mournfully with the eye of glass, I shall him. Somewhat after this fashion: undoul y Jaugn. “You have sung elsewhere?'’ inquired| “If only you do not flat!” hissed Fan. Fanchot with an air—indulgent as an old | chot, before vowing, in exquisite limpid gentleman in spats. harmonies, that yonder moon might prove “That runs without speaking,” she re- | his constancy. ‘at Fanchot's table, and soon his spirit y to be | reason of the merciless exigencies ou music, Juliette was thereupon faint with happiness, but in a murmur following sweetly, so that her red lips barely moved, she wielded the lash once more. | **And R ing his soul her omeo, swearing soul to | service, muttered in the first free second, with dry lips— “I have no wish" | Wherein he lied, shamefully—from the id of a fiery furnace, 2s it were. | ut Martier did not laugh. Being Juli- | ette, she flung instead both white arms | about his neck, and uttered a trill of ec- | static emotion—only as her dark hair | swept his cheek where the blood leaped | up to welcome it, she cooed softly, with a | refinement of derision, with an absolute quintessence of unkindliness: “That sees itself.” In spite of all which, “Romeo et Juli- ette” was one of Fanchot's few remaining jovs in life. At least it ht him to where he would be, and not all the little Martier's unspeakable cruelties could rob him of a consequent choking happiness that endured to the fall of the curtain. Fanchot was not a Cave-Man, as one sees that delightful tradition. It occurrea to him not once in the course of a tumult- uous season that no woman is won by hu- mility, and that a trifle of brute force will move mountains. It may be he had never heard of a Cave-Man, or, having heard, it may be that he shuddered at the heresy. In any case, where rudeness and determi- nation might have been wisdom most ef- fective, he preferred to rely upon caustic which broke beneath his weight —added to their own. So things grew no better between the little tenor and the chanteuse legere—if anything, they altered for the worse. served those eyelashes, or she would doubtless have asked, with a delicate sniff, if perhaps he braided them before retir- ing at night. t was well into January when the first : slackening of work aj red, and with it | the first easier days for the singers. Mar- | continued to rub with salt, | di Gras came early, with a rout of balls | “but it is the rule of the house. After : preceding it, and the Opera House was, ! Pr right of tradition, converted on such than two nights out of a week. therefore, were Bergere and Charprent and Martier and the rest of them in demand. They took advantage joyfully of their increas. ing idleness. Charprent and his wife made long excursions into the country, returning foot-sore and jubilant. Bergere and her little white dog underwent a rest- pant, slender Handel haunted the shops in an orgy of chiffons. Fanchot, daily, took solemn, aimless rides in buzzing tax- icabs. And Martier—Martier went away, as often as chance permitted, to a certain charming plantation-house, in one of the Parishes, where the hostess, a poet in a small and delicate way, delighted to play at bohemia, and worship genius in its hours of ease. She was a witch, that small Martier. Upon each fresh return, when Fanchot, hoping against hope, greeted her tenta- tively, she trod upon her wound. You may imagine her little French heels, dap- pled with blood, tapping blithely, nonethe- less, Bpor their way. “Ah!” she would cry, unfolding her napkin daintily, “you? How this place is dull—eh? Are you looking at me” 1 can- not always tell—because of the eye. not quaint?" And Fanchot would smile wryly—his hope once more flung back upon itself. “To-night,” he would remind her, “there is Juliette. 1 trust she will not flat one little note. 1 have an ear so deli- i that game! ut it grew tiresome, e! Then at the end of a el. the last in January, Martier, who had gone as usual to the plantation, failed to return one morning; and evening papers, hawk- ed about the street by careless boys, print- ed her name in little black letters, mid- way of a pitiful little list. There had been a wreck—a spreading rail—and four lives lost. There was not, in itself, so strange a thing. We must have wrecks, we who travel fast. But when the wreck is at our door—— Charprent, the ores crackling in the hold of his great fist, came first to the Ho- tel de Paris with the news. To his wife who had met him on the stairs with some inconsequent pleasantry about his late- ness, he said five words, his kind, square- jawsd face paling dreadfully, his voice a The little Martier,” he told it thus,” is ead. “Ninette!" shrieked madame, clutching the railing. In a moment she essayed to laugh, tim- orously. “Macaque! You jest.” “Read,” said Charprent, and held the paper up before her eyes, whereupon Hiadgine —, ef gra with no warning one p, into a clamor of hysterics. She had been fond of the wilful girl. “That is well enough,” muttered Char- rent, “we must all grieve—we others— N Figo Fs ct ah heard of ot wi e the tragedy, ad her little white dog up to her cheek, and wept loudly. She had been jealous of Martier, but one can’t be jealous of the dead. Her tears were real. Handel cried out between her sobs that she would not dare, she could not bear to hurt a fly. The rest were no less stubborn—like childre tened n. em sighed Charprent. Ajioom etd down pon the Hote! Paris, like a black 5 . The 8 ingly bi Is it the hallways, smoking solemnly. Into this a of I a gamer and closed the door behind m. At first they thought, t and one other who went hp him, that he did not know. He wore a gray suit, with a red flower in his button. and his soft gray hat hole “I do not care that you should hold me der, occasions into. a ball-room. Not more | cure with a masseuse in attendance. Flip- | “Am 1 late for dinner?” asked Fanchot, and that was all. The soul of the man, like a naked thing seeking cover, caught up the first flimsy commonplace it could find to shelter its agony. “No,” said big Charprent, clumsily ten- , “you are not late, my boy. the third man eagerly, he too clutching the ordinary, for comfort: “There is . an hour yet. “That is ," said Fanchot, but when they lool to see him go up the stairs carrying his grief like a burden, he cross- ed threshold of the dining-room, walk- ed straight to the littie table by the win- dow, placed his hat upon the floor, sat down, rested his elbows upon the cloth, and stared at the empty chair—the chair of little Martier—which stood there fac- ing him. All of this he did like a man in a dream, not deliberately, but with an un- seeing sureness. The forks beside her Pate were awry,and he set them straight. he sat once more quiet, looking across the table, his hands clasped loosely before him, his shoulders droop- ing. fie was like that, while Charprent stoed and watched him. When Charprent went away, he did not move; and he was like that, yet later, a live man, stiffening to stone, while the Hotel de Paris ate its sor- rowful dinner around him, muffling the noises of pork on platter, that grief might go undisturbed. The waiter brought him one course after another, and took each away untouched. Charpent, stopping on the way out. his big face distorted with feeling, lzid a hand on the nearest gray shoulder. “My boy,” he suggested huskily, "if you Jould perhaps eat—" “Eh?” Fanchot did not look up, he merely moved his head. ‘‘Another time.” i "The God knows we can only wait,” the older man continued. “] am waiting,” said Fanchot. And there was no answer to that, Char- prent could see for themselves. So, softly, and with a beautiful under- standing that seemed not to be aware of Fanchot’s presence, the company slipped out, the waiters cleared the tables deftly, and the dining-room was again deserted. Through the semi-gloom, the white'cloths, and the dim goblets, the plated forks, and the tall carafes showed eerily. An air of | weariness hovered about the place, an air | of crowded yesterdays and juggernaut to- ' morrows. Fanchot, in his corner, sat very still, and outside, at intervals,the cars roared by like | rushing winds. When it was nine o'clock and still the little tenor had not moved, a | waiter came quietly to Charprent, an air . | of sympathetic apology upon his weazen- | ed face. He was an old man, and in his | time had slept with sorrow. "One would not disturb him,” he said, nine hourg, no light burns in the dining- room--and he sits there still." him. here,” ‘ ig waiter hung back a moment, wist- ully. “ff one might remark it--1he was a child of the sunshine, that little one.” “It is true," said Charprent simply, “but the good God knows.” The waiter went back to the dining- i room, walking softly, and turned out the single gas-jet that had been burning upon the chandelier. It left the place in a “Have no concern. 1 shall arc-light across the street sifted through the closed windows, and thinned the blackness. “If there is anything monsieur wishes,” offered the waiter, hesitating before the little table in the corner. “Eh?” said Fanchot, answering as if from a great distance, but quietly. He added, after a moment, se:ming to re- member, “There is nothing.” When the waiter had gone, time passed unremarked. Noises in the street grew less. There had been no performance in- tended for the opera that night, and the hotel went early to bed. The sound of the infrequent cars came like a gash across the stillness. One might have heard the wires singi And the dark- ness was without comfort. It was perhaps a little hour after midnight, when Fanchot moved in his chair. He stretched both hands softly Soros the Hobe, tuned | hem palm upward, asa man w Obef. 8 whispered a name. In that long, silent room,its echo did not cross the threshold. “Well-Beloved!” he and again, shaken with longing, “my Well-Beloved!” A little mouse came out of its hole, and gnawed ngly beside the fireplace—no sound but that. “Juliette!” said Fanchot, very stilly; one might have thought, to hear him, he held his breath between the oe ay do, who listen for an answer. "My Well- Beloved !—Dear God—My Well-Beloved!” A little wind came up, and fretted at the windows. A sob caught suddenly in Fanchot’s throat. “But I have waited!” he said, desper- ately low, and his hands clenched in up- on themselves, nail into palm, rigid wi agony. “ God!—my Well-Beloved!"’ Befcre his eyes, dark with pain, and strained with the hopeless hope of re-vi- sioning, a shadow feli and wavered. It grew, misting faintly into form beside that empty chair. Against the darkness, it was as a film; against the close air, as j periume; against the silence as a heart- t. Fanchot sat Nn and tortured. He scarcely breathed. His eyes burned into the dark. Then, while the little mouse at the wall, and the little wind at the windows, there came two other eyes that wide, mocking eyes above a red mouth, tilting at the corners. From the chair that had been across the table, smiled the little er, and Fan- chot sensed a voice. “Oh la! la!” it murmured, “if you re- gard me so mournfully with the eye of glass, I shall undoubtedly laugh.” "My Well-Beloved!" said Fanchot in his heart. His lips moved but slightly, yet he said it again and . "One would not have supposed that you swept him Romeo,” the wide with a delicate disdain, the red mouth curled into a smile. Fanchot's face paled, till even in that darkness, it showed a blur of light. A breathless ecstasy trembled in his voice. He Spoie so low you might not have him, though stood &t his elbow. “Romeo?” he it after her, linger- ingly. "Romeo was a poor fellow—he po. only die when Juliette was gone. | have called you back, my Well-Beloved— I have 48 you back! "Do you so flatter yourself?” She mocked him. “There you are,” he pleaded, and here am I! Has it been one hour or twelve I have sat here? 1 cannot tell. I have tak- en my heart in my hands and wrung it dry. I only know I called you—and you have come.” “Put out your light,” the basso we musty shadow. Only the gioom of an! t the third | "To see—" her chin lifted prettily—"to see poor Romeo pray.” Fanchot's dry lips twitched. “I love you,” he said, “1 love you!—be- yord zl! hope—beyond all peace. For every jest you flung at me I love you more—for every sneer—for e.ery taunt. 1 have not forgotten that first night—I have not forgotten any night. I shall never forget. : She nooded her head, an ethereal mirth narrowing the beautiful eyes. “That sees itself.” she murn ured. “There is no music in heaven,” he told her, in broken passionate whispers.” like the notes you have fiztted. If I have laughed :t them, the gocd G d lied." “Douvtiess,” she nodded sweetly, "doubtless you lied.” “My Well-Beloved,” brezt*